andyincolour's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad fast-paced

4.5


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usernamegenerator's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5


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mikaclapson's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0


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sashalei's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0


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kiwialexa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0


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thesvnthsense's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

3.25


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emjrey's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

5.0

This was an incredible read! I thought it would be just cute stories from her bookstore... And it was, but also had her life story told every other chapter which was a roller coaster of a story! There are some heavy topics and at times its almost unbelievable! 


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steph_phanie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Ruth Shaw has led one incredible and adventurous life. Although her journey was filled with much pain and heartbreak, she looks back upon her life with tenderness. Throughout most of her memoir, my thoughts were, "How did she do all this? How would one even begin? I could never!"

This is more than the story of a bookseller in New Zealand. It is the story of a daughter, mother, sailor (extraordinaire!), lover, survivor, and fighter. She was not perfect, but she was courageous and passionate, and that has brought her to the wonderful place she is in today.

There were some moments where I would have liked more context, detail, and emotion, but overall I enjoyed reading about her vibrant life.

*Please note the content warnings. 

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miekss's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.0

I really liked hearing about Ruth’s story and with every second  chapter of her memoir being a story about her New Zealand bookshop and the people passing through whether regular or a tourist that left a mark on her life. I liked the the authors writing style - as a walkthrough of her life, it made sense to my chronologically ordered brain in the sense that’s also the way I tell stories. 

I felt like something was missing from this book, that I can’t quite grasp words for… perhaps a more in-depth telling of her emotional/feelings journey as these seemed masked by running away / glazed over time periods in the book. 

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agavencrumble's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

5.0


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